I now have a large number of shipments that Amazon claim items were missing. What exact documentation do they require for them to start an investigation their end. I know it says proof of delivery, is that delivery in to Amazon by the carrier?

@iZilla1 You will need the proof of delivery to Amazon’s warehouse from the carrier and also invoices proving the item’s value. But it would be better to start a new topic about your issue as this one is months old.

Hi,
I also have issues with the Halebank FBA Centre.
My shipments are split between Halebank and Swansea. I prepare shipments together and then Amazon separates them into the two FBA centres. The ones that go to Swansea are always correct. Yet those that go to Halebank are always incorrect. This has been going on for over 12 months but unfortunately I only realised a month ago. I therefore lost my chance for compensation on nearly £2000 worth of goods. I have been fortunate enough to receive compensation for all of those since (although compensation doesn’t cover the full cost of goods eg vat, customs and delivery) .I do log all weights and take photo’s just in case of any future issues now.
What really annoys me is that Amazon email to say ‘shipment received in full’ and I always thought this meant everything was there! Surely they should email to say ‘problem with shipment’?
As a single parent and with this business being my only income, I was pretty disheartened to find out that I’d lost £2000 last year through this issue. This money would have made a significant difference to my family. However, I learn from it and at least now I can keep an eye on things regardless of what emails I get sent by Amazon! Although I would much prefer they just sorted out the problem in the first place as I would rather not have the hassle of it all!

I understand your concern regarding the shipment ID FBA15CHM3R8W which has missing units, please allow me to assist you on the same.

The fulfillment center has performed an automatic check, trying to reconcile the shipment and make sure the units have been properly prepped and counted as per specification. We do understand that your next question will be how the fulfillment center have confirmed the unit count for this shipment? The fulfillment center Associates do a physical check of each shipment received at the fulfillment center at various points to ensure that none of the units are left at any points at our fulfillment center.

Millions of products are received and sold on Amazon.com as we follow decisive standard procedure to make 0% errors. However, sometimes accidents do happen. This is not an excuse but we want to tell you that we strive to be the earths most customer centric company by eliminating those small errors. Once again we apologies for all the frustration caused to you in this regards and we hope you’ll give us another chance.

Our Credit Operations team has, I regret to inform you, denied an investigation on this case, as the Fulfillment Center is sure of this unit not being part of your shipment - after performing multiple checks for accuracy. This is also why you were unable to create the case from the reconcile tab of your shipment contents page, and instead, have manually written to us using the contact us page.

We as associates are strictly not allowed to override the FC’s decision, which is why I had this case reviewed from our Credit Operations team. But since even this team is sure of the FC’s decision of this unit being ineligible, I feel dispirited in telling you that I will not be able to conduct an investigation for this missing unit that is ineligible for investigation :

According to Amazon’s Policy regarding this, our Fulfillment Centers perform an automatic check for you in order to determine the accuracy of the item quantity received. This check is performed at multiple points for this accuracy. When our associates at the FC confirm that all the units shipped have been received, and that some units were never found in the shipment, they automatically label these missing units as being ineligible for investigation.

This Policy has made it mandatory for us seller support associates to not work on any units that have been marked as ‘Ineligible for Investigation’ by our Fulfillment Center. I hope you understand how we as associates cannot conduct this investigation as this policy is being evoked strongly and adherence to it has been made vital.

Therefore, we will not be able to assist you in reconciling this shipment. I am sorry about this situation.

We associates, from our end, still made the following attempts to check if your units could be located :

We looked into your other shipments to see if your units had been mis-received, but did not find any.
We further looked in our holding accounts, to see if the units you are missing from your shipment could have been present there, but were again unsuccessful.
We have done all possible searches, but have come to the conclusion that there is no way to account for the missing units.

I am sincerely sorry that despite my best efforts, I cannot go forward with investigating on these discrepancies, as I cannot account for the units in any manner. Neither will I be able to counter the Credit Operations team’s, or the FC’s, decision - of these units being Ineligible for Investigation.

Based on Amazon results that they can’t find it that means that I sent an empty box Amazon as the only other thing in the box was 10 small items that fit into small envelope.
AS the box weighed 15 kilos it was probably filled with stones?

Based on Amazon results that they can’t find it that means that I sent an empty box Amazon as the only other thing in the box was 10 small items that fit into small envelope.
AS the box weighed 15 kilos it was probably filled with stones?

Have you checked the history for the FNSKU? (Reports > FBA > Inventory > Inventory Event Details)
Did they receive them then lose them?

I had a similar issue last year when an amazon associate actually lied to me to close the case, I am going to copy/paste his reply below.

Amazon

Oct 17, 2018 04:27 PM

Dear XXXX,

This is Chris from FBA Seller Support,

Pleas be advised that based on the data we have, we have received the 2 announced boxes and one of the boxes were empty. I regret any inconvenience caused by this issue. I will now close this case. If you have any further queries please don’t hesitate to contact us by opening a new case by clicking on the following link so we can assist you further:

I then contacted the higher department at amazon and received compensation for the box they lost. But it was such a bad feeling that a company like amazon treats seller like this. After receiving the compensation I contacted the same associate again and asked him to apologise for his lie but he never replied and one of his colleague replied back that MR CHRIS is not in office and he’s sorry for all the trouble.

Out of my last 10 shipments I have suffered losses with 5 of them. The worse offender for me is BHX4. I emailed the MD several months ago about it and was told to appeal but make it good as I only have one chance.

Also a problem is the staff no scanning the barcode of each item as SS tell me they do, some of my stock come in colour variations so often find they put them all on the same ASIN so then I have a fight to get things checked. This happened last week, this morning I received an email informing me that they had had made a mistake… with NO apology to me.

Shoddy workmanship and theft from the warehouse staff are the only answers. Amazon used to compensate us completely for the amount we would obeen paid after fees but now just guess at a figure imo… this is a reflection that they are loosing a lot of money by it

The majority of my shipments encounter missing items. Mostly those sent to Halebank but also a couple to Swansea. Unfortunately (my own fault I know) I only realised a few months ago. I had never checked all inventory was checked in because the emails stated ‘shipment received in full’. However a change in stock software indicated exactly how many units I’d lost. For me, I had just become a single parent and the money I lost through Amazon losig my items would have made a HUGE difference to my families life.

I have claimed back as far as I can go and I did receive compensation for this but I lost out for the previous year or so prior to this. The compensation doesn’t quite cover the cost of the item when I consider the customs duties I pay and labour for the packaging. But at least it’s better than nothing!

The last shipment I sent they claim x30 items were missing. No compensation at all! Recently I began taking photos of all my shipments, showing the products that had been labelled and then again, in the box ready for shipping. The box weight tallies up with the products inside too. I only have one lady who comes in to help me and products are counted in total 5 times during the whole process of receiving, labelling and sending onto Amazon. I know for a fact that this is not our mistake. Boxes are sealed by myself and remain in a safe and secure location until ups pick up.

I got the same email (as the top of this thread) and it is infuriating to be indirectly accused of not sending in products when you know full well that you did!

As a single parent and with two children to support, my Amazon business only just pays enough for our living. If they really decide to go down this route of not finding missing products and then not offering compensation then I will have to concentrate on my other selling avenues as ultimately I need to keep a roof over our heads and I am beginning to realize that growing a business on Amazon is not the way forward.

There are major flaws in their checking in processes for larger quantities of items. Also their process of dealing with missing items.
I would love for an Amazon rep to come to mine for the day to observe the process I undertake in prepping a shipment. For them to witness 30 items going into a box and being sealed. Then a few weeks later to see their reaction when 30 items are suddenly missing!!! (I have had 100’s go missing before, several times)

Forums are littered with these stories and so it is clearly a major problem that they need to sort out.

My worry now is that future shipments still continue to be received with missing items regardless of what I do and as my business grows I stand to lose more money. If anyone has any ideas of how I can protect myself please let me know???

I am now going to video the packaging process entirely so even the sealing of the box can be seen!

To be honest, that’s a waste of time and effort videoing the process.
Do you really think that Amazon are even going to look at it?
Let alone, the fact that you cannot prove that after you videoed packing it, you didn’t then open the box and remove something.

Unfortunately, this is just the way of things with Amazon.
Though you do get the occasional benefit of them receiving more than you sent…

If anyone has any ideas of how I can protect myself please let me know???

I have had similar issues with lost stock and have pulled all my FBA stock back out to my own store. Well I should say I created a removal order and they lost half the stock in the process of returning it.

I am so disgusted by the whole FBA process and the refusal to compensate correctly or at all for lost and damaged items I will be managing it myself in future. As a trial I only sent 4 shipments to Amazon each worth around £500 they managed to lose and damage some of the stock and the compensation was less that I paid for the items. For me it is not worth the hassle.

I provide a much better service to customers myself so that is what I will continue to do. I always post ontime and customers get what they actually ordered, I can’t afford to sell using FBA it is impossible for me to make any profit when they lose stock. Plus if I place an order for another marketplace for them to fulfil, they take far too long to send the items out. In one case it was two weeks before they fulfilled an order.

I am very disappointed in FBA it promises a good service and a boost in sales that quite simply is not delivered at all.

I wonder if you could be of assistance I have a similar problem and would like to take this to a higher department in Amazon, How did you go about connecting to a higher department, Would you have any contact details please,

Just wondered if you have had any joy with emailing the managingdirector. We have tried complaining to that email address before and we got a very curt reply basically telling us to speak to seller support (who we were complaining about…!)
We have just shipped one box to Amazon. We have a POD, they have “checked in” the delivery and not after 14 days of not booking the goods in we have raised a reimbursement request and their replies are laughable. Even though we have a POD and the items were “checked in” they just keep constantly stating they have checked with the warehouse and the goods weren’t received.

This seems to becoming worse than ever recently and in the past when 1 or 2 items have been missing they have automatically issued a reimbursement once queried now they just seem to say our warehouse have checked it and we are correct.

We had another example whereby we shipped 20 keyboards in Microsoft outer packing cases that contain 5 keyboards per case so the master shipping box had 4 x 5 packs inside.
We pay Amazon to sticker these but when they received the shipment they only booked in 4 keyboards and we pointed out that obviously they had not opened each box to check the contents inside but had counted each 5 pack as just one keyboard. Again they wouldn’t have this and said they had checked with the warehouse and they were correct.
We therefore did a removal order for all and sure enough when they came back they had just put an FBA sticker on the outer box and we received 20 keyboards back even though we only removed the 4 they had booked in.
We even took a video of us opening the boxes we had back and offered to share this video with them so they could verify the error but they refused to acknowledge this on the emails.

We have been selling on Amazon over 10 years now and pay at least £20k a month in fees but it is getting very close to the point now where we have to move away or not use FBA as it is just becoming too much like hard work dealing with them.

Is it worth posting videos on Youtube, contacting Watchdog etc.
The fear is if you complain in this way they could just stop you selling on Amazon so if you want to continue selling it could defeat the object.!

I also have had an entire shipment worth 10,000 USD lost by FBA UK Fulfillment Center.Shipped from USA to UK. They not only refuse to open case for compensation but arrogantly use Indian Slaves to arrogantly keep dismissing facts of even being delivered saying that its ineligible for investigation cause it wasn’t scanned though its clearly delivered and had signature confirmation. Its FRAUD like behavior by AMAZON UK fulfillment centers .Get a lawyer and contact their legal department, they will keep harassing and ignoring you. Contact Anti Monopoly and Fair Trade Commissioner of the UK for full investigation into such unethical business practices.

If you have an issue with a lost shipment, especially of this magnitude then assuming you have the evidence to show your goods were delivered and signed for you should escalate this tomanagingdirector@amazon.co.uk
however it would be adviseable to refrain from using such verbiage as “Indian slaves” in your communications with them.
If the MD’s team still turn you down then forget the Momopolies commission, they have nothing to do with this, just go legal and file against Amazon.
You do not need to lawyer up, you can do this easily enough yourself.

Thank you Adrian. Sorry for the racist like verbiage. I am also ethnically partly Indian.So its frustrating that they are attempting to use intimidating or bullying like tactics against a seller knowing that factor.
Ofcourse my official claims will be polite and business like .
Appreciate your Time and advice.